First Cash Machine
The first cash machine was invented for a North London branch of Barclays in 1967.
At the time, the plastic cards with a magnetic stripe were not yet invented, so the cash machine used paper checks which were impregnated with Radio Carbon 14, a mildly radioactive substance. The machine could read the numbers and a Personal Identification Number prevented people from sticking in their own checks and withdrawing cash from the account. The maximum amount of cash that could be paid out was £10.
The inventor of both the cash machine and the PIN number was John Shepherd-Barron who came up with the idea in the bathtub.
There are now more than 1.6 million cash machines worldwide and they can be found on every continent, including Antarctica.
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